Sociolingvistiniai ir tarpkalbiniai lietuvių studentų anglų kalbos įsisavinimo aspektai / ; Sociolinguistic and Crosslinguistic Aspects of the Acquisition of English by Lithuanian University Students.

This dissertation combines psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and cognitive linguistic approaches to study the language production phenomenon of crosslinguistic influence (CLI). Modern psycholinguistics has taken an active interest in language production studies, offering a particularly influential model of speech production that is examined in detail. And yet, as many researchers have argued, language data alone are insufficient to paint an accurate portrait of a given speaker’s language use. Whether mono- or multilingual, a speaker’s system of language(s) is itself a sub-system of the language system of the speaker’s family, community, culture, etc. At the same time, recent cognitive linguistic advances in the study of conceptual blending and construction grammar offer unique insights into the structure of the lexicon and even concepts themselves. This dissertation examines the speech production of multilinguals whose English language system has been acquired but is still developing. Such a system is dynamic and subject to unpredictable dynamic effects, here grouped under the general rubric of CLI. The psycholinguistic aspects of this study are concerned with establishing the psychology of students’ language use. The sociolinguistic aspect addresses the need to research the sociocultural background within which the English language system has been acquired. The cognitive linguistic aspects allow in-depth insights into the cognitive and conceptual mechanisms underlying the appearance of learner constructions in production.